Petraeus aims to be Secretary of State and win a Nobel Peace Prize [View all]

Gen. David H. Petraeus, long the most famous overachiever in the U.S. Army, is already on his way to a new career distinction: breaking the land speed record for rehabilitation from a scandal...

He's had offers to teach from at least four universities and had conversations about seats on corporate boards. He's thinking about giving speeches, writing a book on leadership or even becoming a talking head on television.

"Down the road, a return to public service isn't out of the question," a friend who talked with Petraeus told me last week. Not as an elected politician but as a potential Cabinet officer in a future administration.

"He just doesn't see himself as a politician," the friend said. "He sees himself in the vein of George C. Marshall more than Dwight D. Eisenhower." That would be Gen. Marshall who was Army chief of staff during World War II, became secretary of State under Harry S. Truman and won the Nobel Peace Prize for rebuilding postwar Europe.